¶ What an Italyan Fryer Dyd in His Preachyng. CXL
¶ Robert Lyciense, a fryer of Italye (of whome we spake before), preachyng on a tyme with great vehemencye of wordes and gesture, exhorted the prynces and people to make warre agaynste the Turkes and other the enemies of chrystendome: and whan he came to the very effect, and [was] moste hotte and earnest in his tale, he began to wepe, that there were none, that wold to so godly a purpose offer them selfe to be capitains. If this be the let341 of the mattier, beholde me here, whiche will be nothynge abasshed to cast aside this grey friers coate, and to take vpon mee to be a souldiour, or your capitaine. And euen with that woorde he caste of his vpper coate; and vnderneth he was a playne souldiour, arraied in a skarlet cloke, and a long rapier hangeyng by his side. And in this warlyke apparell, in the personage of a Capitan, he stode and preached halfe an houre. Being sente for of the Cardinals with whom he was familiar, hee was asked what was the pretence of that new example. He answered, that he did it for his wenches pleasure, who familiarly confessed that nothynge in the sayd Robert displeased hir, saue his friers coate. Then saide he to hir:
In what apparell shal I best plese you? In a
man of warres, quoth shee? Than se
that you be at my sermon to
morow, quoth he.342
Footnotes
1 Walley obtained his licence or the C. Mery Talys in 1557-8, during the reign of Mary, perhaps in anticipation of a change in the government, and in order to forestall other stationers. If Walley printed the Tales, it is most likely that he waited, till Elizabeth came to the throne.
2 Collier’s Extracts from the Reg. Stat. Co. ii. 25.
3 An abridgment of this ballad was published in Ritson’s Ancient Songs and Ballads, 1829, ii. 31. But see the Townley Catalogue, No. 358.
4 The elder Disraeli has a chapter on this subject in his Amenities of Literature.
5 For some of these notices I am indebted to Mr. Singer; others I have added myself from the various sources.
6 In Act v. Sc. iii of Fletcher’s Nice Valour (Dyce’s B. & F. x. 361) there is mention of the Hundred Novels, alluding, not to the C. Mery Talys, but to the Decameron of Boccaccio, of which an English translation appeared in 1620-5.
7 i.e. do out. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention that in French, the term commander has a double signification, to command and to commend. In our language, the two words are of course distinct; hence the jest.
8 Cudgel.
9 This story is merely the latter portion of the seventh novel of the Seventh Day of the Decameron; but Boccaccio tells it somewhat differently. It may also he found in the Pecorone of Ser. Giovanni Fiorentino, and in A Sackful of Newes. 1673 (a reprint of a much older edition). In the latter there are one or two trifling particulars not found here.
10 A rabbit-warren.
11 Net, Fr. haie.
12 In orig. and because.
13 i.e. ere, before.
14 Owned. In Northward Hoe, 1607, by Decker and Webster, act i. scene i., the writers have made use of this story. See Websters’ Works, edit. Hazlitt, i. 178-9.
15 either.
16 moving.
17 See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, edit. 1849, iii. 387.
18 The reverse of the Somersetshire saying. The proverb is well known: “An honest miller hath a golden thumb;” but to this the Somersetshire folks add, “none but a cuckold can see it.”
19 Burned.
20 orig. reads muste.
21 Richard Rawson was Archdeacon of Essex from 1503 to 1543, and was perhaps the person here intended. See Le Neve’s Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 336.
22 if.
23 before.
24 appertaining or relevant.
25 World.
26 Orig. reads and: but seems to be required.
27 Orig. reads whether.
28 Places or appointments. This is one of the best stories of the kind in the present or any other collection, in our own or other languages. The construction is excellent.
29 Weened (guessed).
30 Orig. reads saw.
31 weened.
32 shells.
33 In orig. by.
34 Orig. reads saw.
35 Orig. reads of.
36 The orig. saw.
37 Orig. hard, i.e. heard.
38 There is perhaps an allusion here to the Interlude of the Four Elements, supposed to have been printed about 1510 by John Rastell.
39 Orig. reads properte is.
40 Vide infra.
41 economy.
42 defiled, from Fr. rayer, to shine and give light, as the rays of the sun, and thence to streak with lines of dirt, and so to soil. The word is not common. See Nares art ray (edit. 1859), and Cotgrave art rayer (edit. 1650).
43 Orig. reads turnyd.
44 Orig. reads saw.
45 smock.
46 i.e. who saw her.
47 An unregistered proverb, perhaps. The meaning is tolerably clear. See Tarlton’s Newes Out of Purgatarie (1590). edit. Halliwell, p. 93.
48 Whither.
49 I am myself responsible for these few words in italic, which I have supplied from conjecture.
50 Perhaps this story, of which we have here a fragment only, was similar to the one narrated a little farther on. See Tale 57.
51 Thavies Inn, near St. Andrew’s Church, in Holborn.
52 wooed.
53 Orig. reads that the colyar.
54 before.
55 the seat of the commode.
56 weened.
57 Orig. reads gentylman.
58 mocked, made a jest of. See Nares (edit. 1859) in voce.
59 This moral is also attached to Tales 21, 44, and 56, in all which cases the lady’s rejoinder is not less opposed to modern notions of female delicacy.
60 orig. reads gentylman.
61 purlieus.
62 a lean beast not worth hunting—Nares.
63 The jest here, such as it is, lies in the play on the words male (of the deer) and the mail, or post.
64 niggard.
65 a week.
66 nonce.
67 Mendicant friar.
68 Merrily.
69 orig. reads send.
70 orig. reads Thomas coke. In the orig. the text runs on in the above passage, which is generally done in old books to save room.
71 tricks and pranks.
72 orig. reads synne.
73 orig. reads he.
74 Intently engaged in the celebration of mass. “St. Lawrence Jewry,” says Mr. Cunningham (Handbook of Lond. 471,) “stood in King Street, Cheapside. It was destroyed in the Fire of 1666, and was rebuilt by Sir C. Wren.”
75 Hooping-cough.
76 orig. reads ever.
77 The celebrated poet. The bishop was of course Bishop Nykke, Nikke, or Nyx, as the name is variously spelled. He held the see from 1501 to 1536.
78 Lute, as a verb, appears to be obsolete. We still say to fiddle, and no doubt to lute was formerly just as much in use.
79 Orig. reads and that commanded.
80 Quietly.
81 This, to save space, is printed like prose in the orig.; but it was evidently meant to be verse.
82 i. e. him. The Orig. reads them.
83 Swoon.
84 Orig. reads besought him of.
85 Orig, reads Nocolas. The Church of St. Nicholas Shambles, which formerly stood in the neigbourhood of Newgate Market, was pulled down at the Reformation. See Cunningham, Handbook of London, in voce.
86 Orig. reads and.
87 Quickly.
88 Orig. reads lyghtlye espye.
89 Singer’s ed. reads yeve.
90 Orig. ed. and Singer read we haue and helpe them.
91 This portion of the tale is repeated in Scoggin’s or Scogin’s Jests.
92 I have supplied these four words from conjecture. They are not in the original nor in Singer’s reprint.
93 The double negative is very common in old English books.
94 Orig. reads wold.
95 Essence?
96 Fetched.
97 Orig. reads whych perchyd, which the context will scarcely allow.
98 Unlawful.
99 The words in italics are supplied by me from conjecture. They are not in orig. or in Singer’s reprint; but it is evident what the context requires.
100 Covetousness. Orig. reads covetous.
101 Whitford, in his Werke for Householders, 1533, says:—“yet must you have a lesson to teche your folkes to beware of the vii pryncipall synnes, whiche ben communely called the seven dedely synnes, but in dede they doue call them wronge: for they be not alway dedely synnes. Therfore they sholde be called capytall or pryncipall synnes, and not dedely synnes. These ben theyr names by ordere after our dyvysion: Pryde, Envy, Wrath, Covetyse, Glotony, Slouth, and Lechery.”
102 i.e. By God’s blood and His nail.
103 Fetch.
104 These words in Italics I have supplied from conjecture. They are not in orig. or in Singer.
105 orig. reads: ex duobus malis minus malis.
106 By God’s body.
107 If meant as quiet irony, this moral is admirable.
108 disparage.
109 orig. is here apparently very corrupt; it reads: “all thoughe the meat therein were nat ynoughe, sodenlye commaunded,” &c.
110 planted it against the roost.
111 orig. reads I am here John Dawe.
112 orig. reads vocacyon.
113 The same story is to be found in Scogin’s Jests, with a trifling variation. Scogin’s Jests were published before 1565. Several of the anecdotes, here narrated, were re-produced in that and other collections. See also Joake upon Joake, 1721, where the present story is told of King Charles the Second, Nell Gwynne, and the Duchess of Portsmouth. In this version the Duchess is the sufferer.
114 This story, as already mentioned in the Introduction, is taken from the tale of the “Vickar of Bergamo” in Tarlton’s Newes out of Purgatorie (1590). See Halliwell’s ed. of Tarlton’s Jests, &c. p. 82. (Shakesp. Sec.).
115 Early.
116 Homily.
117 Satisfy, a very rare word.
118 Ham.
119 The blackness of colliers was employed of course from a very early period as a ground for satirical insinuations as to their connection with the Evil One. In 1568, Ulpian Fulwell, a distinguished writer of the Elizabethan era, published A Pleasant Interlude intituled Like will to Like quoth the Devil to the Collier; and in the old play of Grim the Collier of Croydon, the epithet grim was intended to convey a similar idea. In Robin Goodfellow His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests, 1628, however, Grim is the name of a Fairy.
120 Shoemaker or Cobbler. Lat. Sutor.
121 It is not very usual to find this word in its jocular sense spelled in this manner. It continued to be used in its original signification (action or exploit) even to the Restoration, perhaps later. The most recent example of this employment with which the Editor has happened to meet is at p. 29 of Mauley’s Iter Carolinum, 1660, where the writer speaks of “His Majesties Gests from Newcastle to Holdenby in Feb. 1646.” These gests were certainly no jests. Since the former part of this note was written a more recent instance of the use of gest in the sense in question has occurred to the Editor in the Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilupe, Gant, 1674. 8vo.
122 The words in Italics are supplied from conjecture. They are not in orig. or in Singer.
123 Sacrament.
124 Prepared, i.e. had made themselves ready.
125 Orig. reads spyed.
126 Orig. reads which came.
127 Singer’s conjectural reading is that; but and seems to me to be the word required.
128 See Scoggin’s Jests(reprint 1795), p. 47.
129 Count out.
130 These two words are not in orig. or in Singer; but they seem to be what the context requires.
131 Orig. reads Comode.
132 Weened.
133 Orig. reads and after woman.
134 The celebrated Sir Richard Whittington. In his If you know Not me you know No Body, Part ii. 1606, Heywood introduces the following dialogue respecting Whittington between Dean Nowell and Old Hobson, the haberdasher of the Poultry:—
“Dr. Now. This Sir Richard Whittington, three times Mayor,
Son to a knight, and ’prentice to a mercer,
Began the library of Gray-friars in London,
And his executors after him did build
Whittington College, thirteen almshouses for poor men,
Repair’d Saint Bartholomew’s, in Smithfield,
Glared the Guildhall, and built Newgate.
Hob. Bones a me, then, I have heard lies;
For I have heard he was a scullion,
And rais’d himself by venture of a cat.
Dr. Now. They did the more wrong to the gentleman.”
135 Psalter.
136 Wanting in orig. and left blank by Singer. I have supplied them from conjecture.
137 Priests.
138 Orig. reads gentylmens.
139 Peril.
140 Orig. reads thou sluggynge in thy bedde dost thou no good, which repetition of thou seems unnecessary.
141 Not here put as a painting, but in a general sense, as a representation.
142 The old perfect of start. The orig. reads starte.
143 Singer inserts answered before and said; but the word does not appear to be required.
144 Orig. reads the iii point is that never mis that, &c.
145 A very costly article of female dress during the reigns of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns. It constituted part of the head-gear, and from the way in which it was worn by some women, was calculated to convey a notion of skittishness. In the New Courtly Sonet of the Lady Greensleeves, printed in Robinson’s “Handful of Pleasant Delites,” 1584, the lover is made to say to his mistress:—
“I bought three kerchers to thy head,
That were wrought fine and gallantly:
I kept thee both at board and bed,
Which cost my purse well-favourdly.”
146 Just now.
147 The Genoese.
148 At all points.
149 Make a mistake.
150 Which of the two.
151 A too literal translation of the French word legierement, which ought here to have been rendered readily, rather than lightly.
152 Giddy.
153 No matter.
154 Whispered—Singer.
155 Kissed, from the French word.
156 i.e. twit or taunt.
157 Parvus et Magnus Catho, printed by Caxton, n.d. 4to. Chaucer, in his Miller’s Tale (Chaucer’s Works, ed. Bell, i. 194), describes the old carpenter of Oxford, who had married a young girl, as having neglected to study [Magnus] Catho, which prescribed that marriages ought to take place between persons of about the same age.
“He knew not Catoun, for his wyt was rude,
That bad man schulde wedde his similitude.”
No doubt both Cato and Parvus Cato circulated in MS. before the invention of printing. The former was printed by Caxton in 1483-4. See Blades (Life and Typography of William Caxton, ii. 53-4).
158 Parishioners. This jest is included by Johnson in his Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson, the Merry Londoner, 1607 (reprinted 1843. p. 17).
159 Sell away.
160 John ap Jenkin.
161 The original has who so ever that.
162 Baillie or magistrate, from the old French word bailli.
163 This form of it, though it does not occur in the C. Mery Tales, is very common in old English works; see the Seven Sages, edited by Wright, 1845, for the Percy Society, and the Anglo-Saxon Passion of St. George, 1850 (Percy Soc.).
164 The original has whan she turned her to have taken money.
165 Cheating.
166 The word seems to be here used in a rare sense. The meaning is bulging.
167 This word (Latinè pallium) was originally used in a special and exclusive signification.
168 Singer explains this to mean gazeth.
169 Found fault with it.
170 There is probably some corruption here. We ought perhaps to read: “and toke to his legges as if to go.”
171 Weened.
172 Noctes Atticæ, translated by Belue, vol. i. p. 86. The Historie of Papyrius Prætextatus is related in the 18th Novel of the 1st Tome of Painter’s Palace of Pleasure.
173 Deceit, or what would now be called a white lie.
174 i.e. which of the two.
175 Go easily.
176 This old phrase is still in colloquial use. “A good sight better,” or a “great sight more,” are well understood terms among us, though vulgar.
177 A rare word as a verb, though the adjective peakish is common enough in old English writers. By peaked we must understand “stole” or got admission by stealth.
178 A literal rendering of the Fr. mignon, delicate or dainty.
179 Neatly.
180 The germ of this and the fallowing story may be found in Lane’s Arabian Tales and Anecdotes, p. 112.
181 Importuned.
182 Prowled.
183 Careful.
184 Diogenes Laertius (Lives of the Philosophers, translated by Yonge. 1853, p. 18).
185 The orig. reads whiche on a tyme. I have therefore ventured to strike out the unnecessary word.
186 A cant term for a bonnet.
187 Thick bushy hair.
188 See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, ed. 1849, iii. 132, where Brand cites Melton’s Astrologaster, or the Figure-Caster, 1620, to show that to dream of the devil and of gold was deemed an equally lucky portent. To dream of gold is also pronounced a happy omen in the Countryman’s Counsellor. 1633.
189 Dreams. Thus Chaucer, in the opening lines of the House of Fame (called in the old editions and in the present text the Boke of Fame), says: —
“God turne us every dreme to goode!
For hyt is wonder thing, be the roode,
To my wytte, what causeth swevenes
Eyther on morwes, or on evenes.”
For examples of the later use of the word, see Nares by Halliwell and Wright, art. Sweven.
190 Boasting.
191 Singer reads flee.
192 Headlong.
193 Step, from the Latin grassus or gressus.
194 Circumlocutory.—Singer.
195 Vide supra, p. 22.
196 A word used by Chaucer. It signifies a person licensed to preach and beg within a certain limit. There was an order of mendicant friars.
“Lordings, ther is in Engelond, I gesse,
A mersschly land called Holdernesse,
In which there went a lymytour aboute,
To preche and eek to begge, it is no doubte.”
Chaucer’s Sompnour’s Tale; Works, ed. Bell. ii. 103.
197 Scrowl.
198 In orig. and in Singer this is printed as prose, according to the usual practice. The same is the case with the line below.
199 Narrative or account. In its original signification, libel merely implied libellus, a little book or volume, a pamphlet, but not necessarily one of an offensive kind.
200 Silly and licentious talk. Taylor the Water-Poet, at the end of his Wit and Mirth, 1622 (Works, 1630, folio I. p. 200), uses the expression Ribble-rabble of Gossips, which seems to be a phrase of very similar import.
201 Padua.
202 Hovered. This form of the word is used by Gower and Spenser. See Nares (ed. 1859), voce Hove.
203 Rustic.
204 Inn.
205 See Introduction vi.
206 Debt.
207 Adultery. The word occurs in Bacon’s Essays. In his Essay of Empire, the writer says:—“This kind of danger is then to be feared chiefly when the wives have plots for the raising of their own children, or else that they be advoutresses.” Sir Simonds D’Ewes, in his account of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, in 1613, describes the Countess of Essex as “Somerset’s advoutress” (Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, ed. Halliwell, I. 74).
208 An old form of neither.
209 In orig. desired him of.
210 Orig. reads sayd.
211 Whither.
212 Dionysius.
213 Orig. reads che.
214 Importunate seems to be used here in the sense of oppressive or overbearing.
215 Fr. “guerir,” to heal.
216 Poor, or, perhaps, poorly.
217 Orig. reads all to. We take the true meaning to be alto, as above, i.e. in a loud key.
218 Delude him with the false notion. To bear on hande, I presume to be synonymous with To bear in hande of the use of which among old authors several examples are furnished by Nares (edit. 1859).
219 Shells.
220 Conjecture.
221 Orig. and Singer read an.
222 Innkeeper.
223 Jealous, careful.
224 Pressed.
225 Wreaked, revenged.
226 Reconcile them.
227 i. e. according to their degree of madness. See Introduction, viii. ix.
228 Assortment.
229 Goods
230 This old Yorkshire family produced several persons eminent in the legal profession from the time of Henry I. downward; but the one here intended was, in all probability, John Vavasour, who became Recorder of York, I Henry VII., and was made a justice of the Common Pleas in August, 1490. See Foss’s Judges of England, v. 78, 79.
231 Of me.
232 i. e. availed, has been worth £100 to me.
233 i. e. came to, or amounted to, covered.
234 Hovered, i. e. halted for shelter.
235 Laid it in pledge.
236 Knot, party.
237 To grow faint.
238 Crowd.
239 Usually. See Nares, edit. 1839, in voce.
240 This story is to be found in Poggius, who calls it Mortuus Loquens, and from Poggius it was transferred by Grazzini to his collection of Tales, not published till after his death.
241 Scarcely.
242 Readily. A story very like this occurs in A Sackful of Newes, 1673. It was originally related by Poggius in his Facetiæ, where it is entitled Asinus Perditus, and it has been imitated by La Fontaine in the fable of “Le Villageois qui cherche son veau.” It is also the 12th tale of Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles.
243 Before.
244 Pillaged.
245 “Now there was one Marcus Livius, a Romaine that was Gouernour of Tarentum at that time when Hanniball tooke it, and neverthelesse kept the castell still out of Hannibals hands, and so held it untill the city came againe into the hands of the Romaines. This Livius spited to see such honour done to Fabius, so that one day in open Senate, being drowned with enuy and ambition, he burst out and said, that it was himselfe, not Fabius, that was cause of taking of the city of Tarentum again. Fabius, smiling to hear him, answeryd him opely: ‘Indeed, thou saiest true, for if thou hadst not lost it, I had never won it again.’”—Plutarch’s Lives, transl. by Sir T. North, ed. 1603, fol. 192.
246 Πὁλτυς, ὁ Θρακὡν Βασιλεὑς εν τὡ Τρωικὡ πολἑμω πρεσβυσαμἑνων πρὁςαὑτον αα τὡν Τρὡων και τὡν Ἁχαιὡν, εκἑλευσε τὁν Ἁλἑξανδρον αποδὁντα τἡν Ἑλἑνην, δὑο παρ αὑτου λαβεἱν καλἁς γυναἱκασαὑτου λαβεἱν καλἁς γυναἱκασ—Plutarchi Apothegmata (Opera Moralia et Philosophica, vol. vi. p. 665, edit. Lipsiæ, 1777).
247 See the 21st Novel of the 1st tome of the Palace of Pleasure (Haslewood’s edit. i. 74).
248 “Quibus perlectis, quum se consideraturum, adhibitis amicis, quid faciendum sibi esset, dixisset, Popilius, pro cetera asperitate animi, virga, quam in manu gerebat, circumscripsit regem: ac, ‘Priusquam hoc circulo excedas,’ inquit, ‘redde responsum, senatui quod referam.’ Obstupefactus tam violento imperio parumper quum hæsitasset, ‘Faciam,’ inquit ‘quod censet Senatus.’ Tun demum Popilius dextram regi, tanquam socio atque amico, porrexit.”—Livy, lib. xlv. c. 12, edit. Twiss.
249 Edged.
250 “Mal est caché a qui l’on void le dos.”—Leigh’s Select French Proverbs, 1664.
251 Good fortune.
252 Casting of lots.
253 Lampsacus.
254 Anaximenes, the historian, who wrote an account of the Life of Alexander the Great. He was a native of Lampsacus, and the nephew of the orator of the same name.
255 i.e. Discharge, or acquit herself of, her trust.
256 Uncouth. “If thou shuldest refuse to do any of these thynges, and woldest assaye to do some thing of more sadnes and prudence, they wyll esteme and count the vnmanerly, cloubbysshe, frowarde, and clene contrarye to all mennes myndes.”—Erasmus De Contemptu Mundi, transl. by Thomas Paynel, 1533, fol. 42. “Rusticitie may seem to be an ignorance of honesty and comelinesse. A Clowne or rude fellow is he, who will goe into a crowd or presse, when he hath taken a purge: and hee that sayth, that Garlicke is as sweet as a gillifiower: that weares shooes much larger then his foot: that speakes alwaies very loud:” &c.,—Theophrastus His Characters, translated by John Healey, 1616, pp. 15, 16. It is a generally received opinion that this work has come down to us in a corrupt shape.
257 Times were altered when the curious ballad “These Knights will hack,” printed by Mr. Halliwell from Addit. MS. 5832, in one of the Shakespeare Society’s publications (Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, &c., p. 144), was directed against the mushroom-knights of James I.:—
“Come all you farmers out of the countrey,
Carters, plowmen, hedgers, and all,
Tom, Dick, and Will, Ralph, Roger, and Humphrey,
Leave of your gestures rusticall.
Bidde all your home-sponne russets adue,
And sute yourselves in fashions new:
Honour invits you to delights;
Come all to court, and be made knights.
He that hath fortie pounds per annum
Shal be promoted from the plow:
His wife shall take the wall of her grannam,
Honour is sould so dog-cheap now,” &c.
258 Consult the new edition of Nares’ Glossary, voce Walsingham. “This is an Image of oure Ladye. Ergo it is oure Ladye, and here she wyll worke wounders more than in an other place, as she dyd at Walsingham, at Boston, at Lincoln, at Ipswiche, and I cannot tell where.”—Wilson’s Rule of Reason, 1551, 8vo. sign S ii verso. In Percy’s Reliques, ii. 91, is the ballad “As I went to Walsingham.” “Have with you to Walsingham” is mentioned as a musical composition in Ward’s Lives of the Professors of Gresham College. See also Burney’s Hist. of Music, iii. p. 111. When people employed this form of adjuration, as was formerly very common, they were said, for brevity’s sake, “to swear Walsingham.” In the play of The Weakest Goeth to the Wall, 1600, 4to. Barnaby Bunch the Botcher sings:
“King Richard’s gone to Walsingham,
To the Holy Land!”
with what are intended for comic interlocutions. In March, 1502—3, Elizabeth of York, consort of Henry VII, made an oblation of six shillings and eightpence to “oure lady of Walsingham” (Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, edited by Nicolas, p. 3). This offering may not appear very large, but it was thought a considerable sum to devote to the purpose in those days; for in the Northumberland Household Book, ed. 1827, p. 337, we find that the yearly offering of the Earl of Northumberland (Henry Algernon Percy, 5th. Earl, b. 1478, d. 1527) to the same shrine was fourpence. There is a fuller account of the Shrine of Walsingham, &c., in Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, 121, et seqq.
259 It is just possible that this individual may be identical with the “John Reynolde” mentioned in the subjoined extract from the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, under date of December, 1502:—
“It[=m] the xvth day of Decembre, to John Reynolde for money by him payed to a man that broke a yong hors of the Quenes at Mortymer by the space of v wekes, every weke iis. s[=m]. xs.”
260 Orig. reads as.
261 Foolish. Used in this sense by Chaucer and Shakespeare. See the last edit, of Nares in voce.
262 I have already explained this word to signify adultery. The latter form appears to have been little used by old writers (though it occurs in the Rule of Reason, 1551, 8vo. by Thomas Wilson). Thus in Paynel’s translation of Erasmus De Contemptu Mundi,1533, fol. 16, we find—“Richesse engendre and brynge forth inceste and advoutry.”
“Hobs. Mass, they say King Henry is a very advoutry man.
“King. A devout man? And what King Edward?”—
Heywood’s Edward IV. Part I. 1600.
263 Orig. and Singer read opteyned.
264 Orig. and Singer read wordlye.
265 Give attention.
266 “The covetous man is servaunt and nat mayster vnto riches: and the waster will nat longe be mayster therof. The one is possessed and doth nat possesse; and the other within a shorte whyle leueth the possession of riches.”—Erasmus De Contemptu Mundi, 1533, fol. 17 (Paynel’s translation). So also, in the Rule of Reason, 1551, 8vo, Wilson says:—“Is a covetous man poore or not? I may thus reason with my self. Why should a couetous man be called poore, what affinitie is betwixt them twoo? Marie, in this poynct thei bothe agree, that like as the poore man ever lacketh and desireth to have, so the covetous manne ever lacketh, wantyng the use of that whiche he hath, and desireth styl to have.” “To a covetous ma he (Pythagoras) sayde:—“O fole, thy ryches are lost upon the, and are very pouertie.”—Baldwin’s Treatise of Morall Phylosophie, 1547.
267 Conjured.
268 Orig. reads no meat of.
269 Orig. reads a fire.
270 This tale, which is a very old one, is also found in Jests to Make You Merie, by T[homas] D[ekker] and George Wilkins, Lond. 1607, 4to. and in the Philosophers Banquet, 1614, 3vo.
271 In Chevræana, première partie, Paris, 1697, 8vo. p. 119, this story is altered to suit the Emperor Maximilian I.
272 See Balbo, Vita di Dante, edit. 1853. Can de la Scala, mentioned in the text, was one of the sons of Alberto de la Scala, Lord of Verona, and was born in 1292. Some account of Alberto de la Scala may be found in my Venetian History.
The anecdote related here probably refers to the earlier period of Dante’s acquaintance with the prince, about A. D. 1318-20. Balbo does not seem to have thought this story worthy of notice, though he furnishes one or two other examples of the poet’s powers of retort. See also Cinthio’s Hecatommithi, Deca Settima, Novella settima, edit. 1608.
273 Orig. reads holde.
274
“On Sore Eyes.
Fuscus was councell’d if he would preserve
His eyes in perfect sight, drinking to swerve;
But he reply’d, ’tis better that I shu’d
Loose the, then keep them for the worms as food.”
Wits Recreations, 1640 (p. 35 of reprint 1817).
275 See the new edition of Nares in voce. Orphlin is merely a contraction of the French orphelin.
276
“A Skilfull Painter such rare pictures drew,
That every man his workemanship admir’d:
So neere the life in beautie, forme and hew,
As if dead Art ’gainst Nature had conspir’d.
Painter, sayes one, thy wife’s a pretty woman,
I muse such ill-shapt children thou hast got,
Yet mak’st such pictures as their likes makes no man,
I prethee tell the cause of this thy lot?
Quoth he, I paint by day when it is light,
And get my children in the darke at night.”—
Taylor’s Sculler, 1612 (Works, 1630, iii. 22).
277 See Scoggin’s Jests, p. 28 (edit. 1796).
278 Liest.
279 (?) God’s alms. Browne calls this a dunghill oath:—
“With that the Miller laughing brush’d his cloathes,
Then swore by Cocke and other dung-hill oathes.”
Britannias Pastorals, lib. i. p. 100 (ed. 1625).
It is very commonly found in the early dramatists, and long before the statute of James the First, By cock and similar phrases were used, in order to evade the charge of profaning the name of the Deity. It is of particularly frequent occurrence in Skelton’s Magnyfycence:—
“Cr[afty] Con[veyance]. Cockes armes, thou shalt kepe the brewhouse
boule.
Fol[ye]. But may I drynke thereof whylest that I stare?”
Magnyfycence (Skelton’s Works, ed. Dyce, i. 268).
But this writer seems to have employed it rather fantastically than from any desire to soften the oath; for elsewhere in the same piece we find By God, Goddes fote, &c. The practice of swearing had grown to such a pitch in the time of Taylor the Water-Poet, that that writer says (Against Cursing and Swearing, Works, 1630, i. 50):—“If the penalty of twelve pence for every oath had been duly paid (as the statute hath in that case provided) I doe verily beleeve that all the coyned money in England would have been forfeited that way.” Whitford, in his Werke for Housholders, first printed about 1528 (edit. 1533, sign. c. ii et seqq.), relates several remarkable judgments as having fallen, within his personal knowledge, on profane swearers, who were as plentiful and as reckless in the time of Henry VIII. as they were a century later.
280 Do it.
281 God thank you.
282 i.e. I had.
283 The beverage of which these persons are here supposed to partake was probably what, in Charles the First’s time, was called white wine; which, if diluted, as was no doubt very commonly done, would present a very watery aspect. A very curious account of the wines in vogue during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. is given by Taylor the Water-Poet in his Praise of Hempseed. Cartwright, in his Ordinary, has the following passage, describing the various sorts of wine used in his day:—
“Hearsay. Thou hast forgotten Wine, Lieutenant, wine.
Slicer. Then to avoid the grosse absurdity
Of a dry Battel, ’cause there must some bloud
Be spilt (on th’ enemies side, I mean) you may
Have there a Rundlet of brisk Claret, and
As much of Aligant, the same quantitie
Of Tent would not be wanting, ’tis a wine
Most like to bloud. Some shall bleed fainter colours,
As Sack, and white wine. Some that have the itch
(As there are Taylors still in every Army)
Shall run with Renish, that hath Brimstone in’t.”
Aligant mentioned in this extract was the wine grown in Alicante, a province of the ancient Kingdom of Valencia. Sometimes it was spelled Aligaunt or Aligaunte:—
“Pseud. In Ganges Iles I thirty rivers saw
Fill’d with sweet nectar.
Lach. O dainty lyer!
Pseud. Thirty rivers more
With Aligaunte.”
Timon, a Play, p. 39.
In the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., under date of Feb. 16, 1530, occurs the following item:—“Paied to the S’geant of the Sello’ for iii tonne of white wyne of galiake (Gaillac in Languedoc).” See also the Northumberland House-Hold Book, ed. 1827, p. 414; and Taylor’s Penniless Pilgrimage, 1618 (Works, 1630, i. 136).
284 “He that will take the bird, must not skare it.”—Herbert’s Outlandish Proverbs, 1640, No. 41.
285 This word, which frequently occurs in the course of the present work, must be understood to be merely equivalent to the Greek [Greek: tyrannos], a prince whose authority is unlimited by constitutional restraints. There seems to be some ground for the supposition that [Greek: tyrannos] is nothing more than the Doric form of [Greek: koipanos]. It may be mentioned that in middle-Greek the word despota ([Greek: despotês]) bore no harsher meaning than that of a petty prince, acting independently, but acknowledging a suzerain. It is to be found in this sense, I think, in almost all the Byzantine historians.
286 i.e. when the undertaking is no matter of choice.
287 This is a very favourite tale with the early Italian novelists. In Dunlop’s History of Fiction, ii. 364-5 (Second Edition), the incident is said to have been founded on a real adventure of a French priest. In the following extract from a highly curious pamphlet, it appears in a different form:—
“There was a rich Burgess of Antwerp, a Mercer by his trade, who was a Bawd to his own Wife (though it was against his will or knowledge), but I blame him not, for I doubt hee hath many more fellowes as innocent and ignorant as himselfe, but this was the case, his wife wearing corke shooes, was somewhat light-heel’d, and like a foul player at Irish, sometimes she would beare a man too many, and now and then make a wrong Entrance. The summe was, that shee lov’d a Doctor of Physicke well, and to attaine his company shee knew no better or safer way, than to faine her selfe sicke, that hee under the colour of visitation might feele her pulses, and apply such cordiall Remedies as might either ease or cure her. In briefe, the Doctor being sent for, comes and finds the Mercer her husband walking in his shop with a neighbour of his, where after a leash of Congees, and a brace of Baza los manus, the Mercer told him that his Wife is a languishing sicke woman, and withall entreats him to take the paines to walke up the staires, and minister some comfort unto her: Master Doctor, who knew her disease by the Symptomes, ascends up into the Chamber to his longing patient, staying an houre with her, applying such directions and refections, that her health was upon the sudden almost halfe recovered; so taking his leave of her (with promise of often visitation) he comes downe into the shope, where the guiltlesse Bawd her husband was, who demanding of the Doctor how all did above; truely quoth hee, much better than when I came, but since I went up, your wife hath had two such strange violent fits upon her, that it would have grieved your very heart to have seene but part of one of them.”—Taylor’s Bawd (Works, 1630, ii. 94).
288 Louvaine.
289 Cooked.
290 It is scarcely necessary to mention that formerly all priests were styled Sir. One of John Heywood’s interludes is called: A Play between Johan the Husband, Tyb the Wife, and Sir Johan the Prest. In an old ballad in the Ashmole Collection, beginning, “Adew! my pretty pussy,” there is this passage:—
“But the gyrld ys gon, syr,
With a chokynge bon, syr,
For she hath got Syr John, syr,
And ys oure vyckars wyff.”
291 Thwarted, crossed.
292 The original of this is the Fabliau of La Hence Partie, in Barbazan’s Collection. The story has been used by Lando, in his Varii Componimenti, 1552, 8vo.
293 Bath.
294 Rub, from the French, frotter.
295 Phocion, the celebrated Athenian patriot, b. 402 B.C. d. 317 B.C. Full particulars about him may be found in Mr. Grote’s History of Greece, and in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Classical Biography.
296 Orig. reads unnecessarily, and to be such one styll.
297 The celebrated Latin poet. “Quintus Ennius,” Gellius tells us (N. A. lib. xvii. cap. 17), “said he had three hearts, because he understood the Greek, Oscan, and Latin languages.”
298 Orig. reads coude.
299 So far extends Berthelet’s edition, of which the colophon is: Imprinted at London in Flete Strete in the house of Thomas Berthelet nere to the Cundite, at the sygne of Lucrece. ¶ Cum priuilegio. The remaining 26 tales are from the Ed. of 1567.
300 Dormitory.
301 During the Wars of the Roses. In The First Part of Edward IV., by Thomas Heywoud, 1600 (Shakesp. Soc. repr. p. 41), Hobs, the Tanner of Tamworth, says:—
“By my troth, I know not, when I speak treason, when I do not. There’s such halting betwixt two kings, that a man cannot go upright, but he shall offend t’one of them. I would God had them both, for me.”
302 This word is in the original text printed twice by an oversight. I have struck out the duplicate.
303 i.e. a person dwelling in the uplands or mountainous districts where the learning of the cities had not very deeply penetrated. Hence the word became synonymous with ignorant and uninformed. Alexander Barclay’s fifth eclogue is “Of the Citizen and Uplandish Man.” The poem of Jack Upland is printed in the old editions of Chaucer and in Wright’s Political Poems and Songs, 1861, ii. 16. Mr. Wright assigns to it the date of 1401.
“He hath perus’d all the impressions
Of Sonnets, since the fall of Lucifer,
And made some scurvy quaint collections
Of fustian phrases, and uplandish words.”
Heywood’s Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1600.
304 Perhaps went is the true reading.
305 “What must he (the king) do then? He must be a student. He must write God’s booke himselfe, not thinking because he is a king, but he hath licence to do what he will, as these worldly flatterers are wont to say.”—Latimer’s Second Sermon before King Edward VI. 1549.
306 i.e. coming home.
307 Better known as Roberto Caraccioli-Caraccioli. He was born in 1425 at Licio, in the Neapolitan territory, and was thence often called Robertus Liciensis. Watt (Bibliotheca Britannica, voce Licio) mentions only his sermons: but he published several other tracts.
308 Usually spelt prease or prese. The word signifies crowd. It occurs in this sense in Edwardes’ Damon and Pythias, composed about 1564.
“Yet shall there no restraynt
Cause me to cese,
Among this prese,
For to encrese
Youre goodly name.”
Skelton’s Garlande of Laurell.
309 Orig. and Singer read or els you to holde.
310 The celebrated Moria Encomium, of which an English version appeared in 1549.
311 Nosled or nousled is the same as nursled, brought up. See Todd’s Johnson, 1827, in voce nosled; and Richardson’s Dict. ibid. The word is not in Webster or Nares.
312 The allusion in the text is probably to the paraphrastic version of the New Testament by Erasmus, which had then recently appeared in two volumes, folio (1516). The work did not appear in an English dress till 1548.
313 Enchiridion Militis Christiani. An English translation of this work appeared in 1533, in which Enchiridion is rendered The Handsome Weapon.
314 These pleasantries at the expense of the preachers in the time of Henry VIII. bear perhaps a little hard upon the fraternity. The rendering of Latin authors was not much improved a century or two later.
315 The Northern men seem to have been formerly favourite subjects for story tellers and ballad-writers. Martin Parker published a poem called “The King and a Poore Northern man,” and there is a ballad entitled “The King and the Northern man.” Neither has anything to do with the present tale. No. 95 of the C. Mery Talys, of which only a small fragment is at present known to exist, is entitled, “Of the Northern man that was all harte.”
316 “Richard, Richard, by the mass I am glad that thou art king!”
317 A very usual practice in those days. At p. 254 of the Northumberland House-hold Book (ed. 1827) we find:—
“Two Gentlemen waiters for the Bordes Ende and a servaunt betwixt theim iii—Hannsmen and Yonge Gentlemen at their Fryndes fynding v (as to say Hanshmen [Henchmen] iii and yong Gentlemen iii).”
Orig. and Singer, for trane read trade.
318 Tricks upon blind persons naturally form a feature in the jest books. The eighty-third adventure of Tyl Owlglass is a practical joke on a blind man, and in Scoggin’s Jests, 1626, there are one or two examples.
319 A cheat or rogue. See Rowland’s Knave of Clubbs, 1600 (Percy Soc. ed. p. 18). The word Shifter is employed by Rowlands in the Knave of Harts, 1613, and by others of our elder writers in the same sense. In the following passage, shift is used to signify a piece of knavery:—
“Ferd. Brother, you lie; you got her with a shift.
Frank. I was the first that lov’d her.”
Heywood’s Fair Maid of the Exchange, 1607 (Shakesp. Soc. ed. p. 87).
See also Taylor’s Works, 1630, ii. 144. In his Sculler, 1612, the last mentioned writer introduces a sharper into one of his epigrams under the name of Mounsieur Shift, “cozen-german to Sir Cuthert Theft” (Works, iii. 25).
320 Antiently, no doubt, Long Lane ran between hedges into Smithfield; but it appears that even in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign building had commenced in this locality. Stow (Survey of London, edit. 1720, lib. iii. p. 122) says:—“Long Lane, so called from its length, coming out of Aldersgate Street against Barbican, and falleth into West Smithfield. A Place also of Note for the Sale of Apparel, Linnen, and Upholsters Goods, both Secondhand and New, but chiefly for old, for which it is of note.” See also p. 284 of the same book, and Cunningham’s Hand Book of London, edit. 1848, in voce, with the authorities and illustrations there given. Rowlands, in his Letting of Humors Blood in the Head Vein, 1611, Sign. C. 2 verso, celebrates this spot as one of the principal haunts of the pawnbrokers. In Wits Recreations, 1640 (edit. 1817, p. 109), there is the following epigram:—
“He which for ’s wife a widow doth obtain,
Doth like to those that buy clothes in Long Lane,
One coat’s not fit, another’s too too old,
Their faults I know not, but th’ are manifold.”
Day, in the Parliament of Bees, 1641, 40, Sign. C, speaks very disrespectfully of the population of Long Lane in his time. See Maroccus Extaticus, 1595 (Percy Soc. ed. p. 16), Dekker’s Knights’ Conjuring, 1607, ed. Rimbault, p. 54. Webster’s Works, by Hazlitt, i. 94. and Taylor’s Works, 1630, Sign. Ggg4. The Swan Inn has disappeared, but whether it has merged in the Barley Mow, or the Old Red Cow, I do not know.
321 Nearest.
322 The original reading is, so while they were doying.
323 Innkeeper. This form of the word continued to be used by English writers even in the later half of the seventeenth century.
324 Perhaps this, like Makeshift, was merely intended as a phrase to disguise the real name of the person intended.
325 Northumberland Alley was in Fenchurch Street, and was notorious for bowling-greens, gaming-houses, &c. Probably this is the locality intended. See Cunningham’s Handbook to London. 596 edit. 1848.
326 i.e. a burlesque play.
327 Orig. and Singer read man.
328 Aldersgate. In the Ordinary, by W. Cartwright, Moth the Antiquary says:—
“Yclose by Aldersgate there dwelleth one
Wights clypen Robert Moth; now Aldersgate
Is hotten so from one that Aldrich hight;
Or else of Elders, that is, ancient men;
Or else of Aldern trees which growden there;
Or else, as Heralds say, from Aluredus.”
329 Inns were not so plentiful at this time as they afterward became. Perhaps the establishment here referred to was the celebrated Bell Inn, which was still standing in the time of James the First, and which is mentioned by Taylor the Water-Poet in his Penniless Pilgrimage, 1618 (Works, 1630, i. 122):—
“At last I took my latest leave, thus late
At the Bell Inn, that’s extra Aldersgate.”
330 i.e. it were a charity to thruste, &c. The original and Singer have, “it were almes it thruste.”
331 In the original this is printed as prose, perhaps to economize space. Array, or araye, as it is here spelled, signifies obviously disturbance or clamour. So in the History of King Arthur, 1634, Part iii. cap. 134:—“So in this rumour came in Sir Launcelot, and found them all at a great aray;” and the next chapter commences with, “Aha! what aray is this? said Sir Launcelot.”
332 Probably the cup bequeathed by Sir Martin Bowes to the Goldsmiths’ Company, and still preserved, is here meant. See Cunningham’s Handbook of London, art. Goldsmiths’ Hall, and for some account of the Bowes family, which intermarried with that of D’Ewes, see Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, ii. 17, 18. It seems to have been a rather common practice formerly to engrave figures of Saints, representations of the Passion, &c. on the bottom of drinking cups.—See Rowlands’ Knave of Clubbs, 1600. (Percy Soc. repr. p. 64.)
333 In the same manner that he inquired of others, &c.
334 This is related differently in Plutarch. “Now Agesilaus being arrived in Ægypt, all the chiefe Captaines and Governors of King Tachos came to the seashore, and honourably received him: and not they onely, but infinite numbers of Ægyptians of all sorts... came thither from all parts to see what manner of man he was. But when they saw no stately traine about him, but an olde gray-beard layed on the grasse by the sea side, a litle man that looked simply of the matter, and but meanely apparelled in an ill-favored thread-bare gowne: they fell a-laughing at him, remembring the merry tale, that a mountaine,” &c.—North’s Plutarch, edit 1603, fol. 629-30.
335 Remuneration.
336 To persuade by reasoning.
337 Turning by force of ingenuity.
338 Owed.
339 See Lane’s Arabian Tales and Anecdotes, 1845, p. 73, for a story similar to this.
340 This story is applied by Richard Johnson, editor of the Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson the Merry Londoner, 1607, 4to, to his own purposes. Johnson was an unscrupulous appropriator.
341 The obstacle to the matter.
342 This tale is followed by the colophon, which is: Imprinted at London in Fletestrete, by Henry Wykes. Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum.